


Keep Pace

by th_esaurus



Category: Rush (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 15:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The club is crass and noisy and Niki won't shout to make himself heard. It's all right. James leans in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Pace

**Author's Note:**

> Just trying to find their voices. I literally don't know anything about F1. Cool.

He has two cracked ribs and an ugly bruise across his protruding collarbone, and it's closer to morning than he's been awake in a solid month. "Christ, you should be in a hospital," James says, around a thin brown cigarillo someone else lit for him. He pulls at the neck of Niki's shirt, laughing.

"You invited me out," Niki tells him dryly. The club is crass and noisy and he won't shout to make himself heard. It's all right. James leans in. 

"I'm certainly sure I did, and I'm equally sure you won't make the most of it," he booms, his ear to Niki's mouth but his eyes roving. He has a girl on his arm already. The smoke puffing out the sides of his grin smells of walnut. His hair is very poorly kempt. 

"I'm leaving," Niki announces. 

"Stay?"

"—Fine."

*

James chases him down the promenade barefoot. His feet slap obnoxiously on the stone, out of rhythm with Niki's staccato heels. He has lost his shirt as well as his shoes, or perhaps gave it away to an endearing admirer. Quite a prize. 

Those assholes.

"Niki!" he calls. "Come back, come back, we've barely started."

"I'm going to sleep," Niki says, not looking back. James catches up with him, knocks him on purpose with his elbow. He does not smell of wood furniture anymore, but of booze and perfume and skin. (Niki wore cologne for a few years, then deemed it pointless; lost under the scent of petroleum and rubber.) "James, go back to your horde."

"They have names, you know. Exotic, Spanish names."

"Name me three."

James shrugs widely, jovially. He lets his arm come around Niki's shoulders and keeps pace with him, without much effort; his legs are longer. An inch or two. A negligible amount.

"Don't walk me back to my hotel," Niki says, clipped. He's looking at the pavement, not the redbrick buildings of Madrid's lazy streets. Maybe to an Englishman there's some romance in their misaligned corners and slouching angles, but Niki thinks them shoddy. There are craftsmen in Vienna; apparently not in Madrid. "I'm going to the track."

"It's one in the morning."

"It's three. It's three AM."

"It's three in the morning!"

"They'll let me in."

*

They are walking arm in arm, because Niki has his hands in his pockets, and James couldn't keep his still. 

*

James shivers and smokes while Niki paces slow circles around the car. His ribcage is goading him, a painful tightness that reminds him of the body's insistence on regularity. He chews gum to keep his mind off it. The car helps, too. He likes to check it for wounds, after a race, so he knows what to expect from the mechanics in the morning; what to tell them they've missed. 

James hops up and down from the workbench, working his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. He can't possibly be cold. He's just attention-seeking. 

They could talk about the race. James could rant about his docked points. Niki could lecture him about fairness. He is quite sure an appeals board will rule in favour of McLaren, but he would not reassure James of this, even if they discussed it.

They don't.

"Gimme your jacket," James says.

"Fuck you. It isn't cold."

"I feel exposed."

"Fuck you."

James is grinning again. He stubs out his cigarette butt with his heel, hisses at the brief heat of it, picks two pebbles out of his skin. 

He shadows Niki for a time. Whistles over the mastery of the car. Puts his thumb in the space where Niki's ribs are breaking and asks him how bad it is. Niki slaps him away, tsks, and makes a point not to rub his chest.

In the quiet, they can both hear the ghosts of the track, racing on eternally. James tilts his head up to listen. Niki, stubbornly, ignores the sentiment.

*

They meet two Spanish girls on the walk back to Niki's hotel.

*

Niki gets back to his room alone.

*

James invites Niki out after the race at Zolder. He'd come back of the field, a bust engine, but James Hunt always celebrates like a winner. Whether or not Belgium has the nightlife to match him. 

"No. I'm leaving," Niki tells him. His muscles are still aching. But it's less.

"Stay?" James asks. 

"Your work ethic is abysmal," Niki snaps.

*

"Fine," Niki says.


End file.
